Uttar Pradesh Will Launch an Online Portal to Prevent MSP Fraud

Following in the footsteps of Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh has decided to develop a new portal to create a database of agricultural and crop information, as well as other details on farmers who will be registered and given a unique identity number, according to officials involved in the matter.

According to them, the initiative will not only relieve farmers of the hassle of presenting documents to various government departments on a regular basis in order to benefit from various government schemes, but it will also focus on ensuring that only legitimate farm owners sell their products to the government and benefit from the minimum support price (MSP) pathway.

The same data may be utilized by other divisions such as agriculture, horticulture, and animal husbandry to rapidly check farmers' data before granting them government assistance or analyzing agricultural damages caused by natural disasters such as floods and drought.

Farmers in Uttar Pradesh are already required to register and report how much land they have seeded with wheat, rice, or maize before selling it at the MSP to governmental bodies. 

The method was implemented in 2018 to prevent phony farmers or agents from taking advantage of the MSP. According to a presentation given by the food and civil supplies department at the CS meeting on Thursday, the current verification mechanism has some flaws.

First, if lekhpals do not conduct on-the-spot verification, the data they offer becomes inaccurate and worthless; additionally, they conduct verification after harvesting, not before farmers are ready to sell their produce. 

Second, because SDMs/tehsildars/lekhpals are overworked, information is frequently not received on time. Third, farmers must return to the tehsil for verification on a regular basis, and fourth, there is always the possibility of partiality in verification.

All farmers are registered and issued a FRUIT ID number under the Karnataka government's FRUITS program, which allows banks and other lending institutions to obtain the land details of farmers as well as their debts and make a swift decision on financing them.